Flying Broomless
by myfoodisnotshared
Summary: She wasn't simple, Madame Hooch. And she wasn't easy either. Drabble collection - all exactly 200 words for the Character of the Week Competition! Femslash.
1. Hogwarts

The first steps on a journey are the easy ones. And it was easy - rummaging through the larder to have chocolate fudge for breakfast, giving her broom a quick polish before setting off into the clouds, turning back five minutes later because she'd forgotten to find robes that weren't covered in strange looking stains. The mundane, the flying, the practicalities- that was easy, too easy.

It was the end of the road Rolanda was scared of. Crossroads, or more accurately, T-junctions because _she couldn't keep this up_. There was no more path she could walk down, nowhere else she could go but here or… She didn't know what she'd do if she didn't get this job. Hogwarts hadn't been home to her in her schooldays, too many rules, too much writing but now- now it was the last place that could be her refuge. No-where else had taken her.

She flattened her hair with one hand, rearranged her robes. Since when had she cared about her robes? Even when she'd been sent to see the old Headmaster, ol' Phineas, she hadn't bothered to fuss about her appearance.

She hated this. She hated Hogwarts.

But she needed somewhere as home.


	2. Bludgers Among Friends

Rolanda worked at Hogwarts for four years before finding out why they hired her. She'd been mediocre in her interview, dismal in her qualifications and one applicant among twelve. One of those other candidates had - she found out in a shirty letter - once been Head Girl, Ravenclaw Captain and flew for the Arrows till she was injured trying to defend another player.

Rolanda had never asked because she hadn't wanted to know. If it was pity because she'd screwed her life up, then at least she'd been hired. If she'd slept with someone's relation, then that was embarrassing, but she wasn't going to cry over it.

She never let herself think they chose her for her. After all, she wouldn't have.

"Rolanda, what did you do with that boy who aimed a bludger at you, Thomas Gudgeon?" Minerva asked her, quite out of the blue one morning. Rolanda screwed up her eyebrows, confused - that had been in a lesson, not a match.

"I gave him one hundred lines… His brother recently contracted lycanthropy, I thought I'd give him a break."

To Rolanda's surprise, the older woman smiled. "Good. I knew you were fair when we hired you."


	3. Melanie

She was a fellow 'Puff, the first woman Rolanda kissed.

Well, not a woman, they were still fourteen-year-old girls wearing their house colours everywhere they could because they just loved them - yellow hair bands, yellow socks, yellow and black necklaces.

"Your hair is so dark…" She had said, Rolanda's best friend, her first love. She carded her hands through the black locks, twisted them round her fingers. "You should wear your yellow flower clip more often, it suits you."

And she had kissed Melanie, even though it was stupid and she could lose her bestie and she'd probably just be pushed off in horror. She was more surprised when she _wasn't_ than if she had been, but not unhappy - so, so frickin' far from unhappy.

"I can't… I can't _believe _this is happening," she had said, kissing her again. Melanie said nothing. "Mel?"

"I- I'm _mad _about you Landie. Will you… We won't stop this, right?" How breathless, how scared she'd sounded. Of course Rolanda couldn't even contemplate leaving her.

"Never, Mel, this- this is permanent." Commitment. Promises. All the things that usually smothered her, but right then she felt free as a bird, flying broomless.

_Oh, Mel._


	4. Shameful Endings

Of course it didn't last. And of course, of damn course, she was the one who broke it.

They dated for a whole year. Twelve months and four days, but by then the slow corrosion of her failures and Melanie's restlessness had already degraded their relationship to tatters, to the point where they were just _waiting _for the end. They weren't friends anymore, not even close. Rolanda had fallen in with Slytherin girls, absorbing herself into their recklessness, their giggling bad ways. All Melanie talked of was studies- 'OWLs this' and 'OWLs that'. They had nothing in common by the end, but still, they kept it going.

Because they were Hufflepuffs, and Hufflepuffs don't give up, even when they should. They value patience so they put up with hell, they care about loyalty so they blind themselves to each other's faults. Still closeted, still young, Rolanda had thought herself so unique. So bloody helpless.

She hadn't meant to snap, though she was glad of it, she was glad when it was over. She hadn't meant to say _mudblood, _she hadn't meant to say _frigid._

But she did, she said those things. And no amount of time can heal such shame.


	5. Memories

I never did marry.

I never did find love, though there were relationships and could be's by the bucket load. For a while, I was _that_ woman - the one not really trying, still clinging to odd ideas of being 'above love' and 'incapable,' ideas I should have outgrown alongside ripped jeans and rock posters.

I didn't realise I was clinging to poor Melanie till I lost her. Or rather, till her family lost her, because we weren't in touch. It was back so early in the first war that newspapers could be relied upon, and she made the front cover - 55-year old adoptive mum-of-two tortured and killed. I wept for days when I read the article, but I didn't even send one flower to her funeral.

It changed things though, because there was urgency, an urgency to find love. So I tried, I really did - blind dates and singles groups, joining organisations and clubs. Sometimes I got close, only for life and the war to intervene. Mostly I just couldn't find that click with anyone.

Excuses, Mel would have said, but she wasn't there to. So I never married. I never loved again.

I just remembered.


End file.
